I have been using Ubuntu for a long time on my personal laptop, and I was okay with using Unity in the beginning. But over the course of time, I was losing interest, given the boot-up and response time issues. I liked the HUD concept, and the dock. But I was never a fan of the dash. And the lenses, no way.
I experimented using multiple other desktops, including Ubuntu Gnome, Mate and Elementary. I was not very happy with the Gnome3 anyway. I went back to XFCE, but did not settle. One of the problems I faced was with the input methods for Malayalam. I guess Elementary seriously has the potential to be next big thing in the desktops. Especially Geary and Midori. They've got great sense of design and usability. But even then, I wouldn't want to switch back to gnome world for now.
That's when I gave KDE a try, and it's been my primary desktop from this year. Back in early 2000's KDE was my primary desktop. Although I preferred that old school non-plasma KDE, I was fine with my own customized version of KDE SC4 without much of bells and whistles. Of late, attempted KDE Plasma 5 which actually has superb response time. But I decided to wait for a lot more stable version, before trying again. Both Elementary Pantheon and KDE Plasma 5 looked really promising in their own ways. But I did not want to go for either of them.
It was in this context, that I looked for an alternative. This is one thing that I should boast of being a GNU/Linux user. The plethora of choices and variety of solutions!!
I was looking for something that's focussed on usability at the same time customizable to a good extend. Clearly, I did not want to go back to Gnome 3, or XFCE. I wanted quick response, light weight desktop. Minimal, but with some options to be decorative at times. So that's how I went about. Landed on razor-qt first, and then to LxQt. When it comes to building GUI application development, I think Qt should be the way to go, rather than Gtk. Object oriented design is cleaner, and better. Less code, less hassles.
LxQt is my primary desktop currently, with openbox as the window manager. By the way, KWin also works pretty well. But I preferred openbox this time, given the simplicity. One thing I miss is tiling. KDE will stay here, as a standby.
I will continue to watch the LxQt space for next releases.
I experimented using multiple other desktops, including Ubuntu Gnome, Mate and Elementary. I was not very happy with the Gnome3 anyway. I went back to XFCE, but did not settle. One of the problems I faced was with the input methods for Malayalam. I guess Elementary seriously has the potential to be next big thing in the desktops. Especially Geary and Midori. They've got great sense of design and usability. But even then, I wouldn't want to switch back to gnome world for now.
That's when I gave KDE a try, and it's been my primary desktop from this year. Back in early 2000's KDE was my primary desktop. Although I preferred that old school non-plasma KDE, I was fine with my own customized version of KDE SC4 without much of bells and whistles. Of late, attempted KDE Plasma 5 which actually has superb response time. But I decided to wait for a lot more stable version, before trying again. Both Elementary Pantheon and KDE Plasma 5 looked really promising in their own ways. But I did not want to go for either of them.
It was in this context, that I looked for an alternative. This is one thing that I should boast of being a GNU/Linux user. The plethora of choices and variety of solutions!!
I was looking for something that's focussed on usability at the same time customizable to a good extend. Clearly, I did not want to go back to Gnome 3, or XFCE. I wanted quick response, light weight desktop. Minimal, but with some options to be decorative at times. So that's how I went about. Landed on razor-qt first, and then to LxQt. When it comes to building GUI application development, I think Qt should be the way to go, rather than Gtk. Object oriented design is cleaner, and better. Less code, less hassles.
LxQt is my primary desktop currently, with openbox as the window manager. By the way, KWin also works pretty well. But I preferred openbox this time, given the simplicity. One thing I miss is tiling. KDE will stay here, as a standby.
I will continue to watch the LxQt space for next releases.
